Youtube is the leader in online video hosting streaming by far, it has dominated the market for well over a decade with little to no ‘real’ competition. In recent years and at an ever increasing pace we have seen Youtube increase their control over the content which is uploaded to their servers, with more and more restrictions the platform has become virtually obsolete for any media providers who don’t comply with strict guidelines, many of which politically motivated.
However, there is hope at the end of the tunnel. In recent months we have heard and seen a number of new ventures which are attempting to compete with Googles Youtube platform, all of which are using Blockchain in some form another to power these innovative and exciting new projects.
From Dtube which is built on the Steem platform to LBRY which is an app based peer to peer platform, both offering decentralized streaming video with payouts to content providers via a blockchain rather than relying on advertisers. But, while many of these new platforms are groundbreaking in what they are attempting to do, none have really had the wow factor needed to get people on mass to take notice.
Flixxo clearly win hands down on marketing their intended future service, the branding looks great, the website looks great and though little is seen of the actual platform itself, what is shown looks far better than anything currently competing in this field.
Simply put, the Flixxo network is peer to peer, using Bittorrent technology and those giving up their storage for video space are rewarded with Flixx Coins, you can also receive coins if your content is liked.
So when looking at an ICO it’s always best to start with the Whitepaper, so lets have a quick skim over the paper.
The paper clearly states who is currently involved in the project and also how the project began and by whom. The team are well qualified and experienced in their field of expertise.
Adrian Garelik, a cinema producer and a scriptwriter (“To fool a thief”, “Unsubscribe”) involved in online content distribution since 1998 (dyzo.com, filmika.com, CinePop!), started this project in late 2014 when he first heard of Bitcoin. In that moment, the quest of developing a democratic and open video distribution platform turned into the foundation of RSK Labs (aka Rootstock) , a company dedicated to implementing smart contract capabilities to Bitcoin.
In 2017 he teamed up with Federico Abad, the UX/UI professional who created Popcorn Time , the most popular streaming application ever developed.
Then Pablo Carbajo joined them, a cryptocurrencies expert who built-up Riecoin (listed as RIC on Poloniex – among other exchanges), a long standing and respected altcoin after Bitcoin. The team has also engaged Javier D´Ovidio, CEO of Edrans , a company with more than 100 employees, with offices in Buenos Aires, Barcelona, London and Las Vegas, which focuses on big data and artificial intelligence.
It then goes onto clearly explain the overall goal in their project, the goal is much the same as the likes of LBRY and dTube, however, with an ICO to fund the project, Flixxo may just beat them to success.
By creating a distributed and incentivized peer-to-peer network where every user turns itself into a distributor of content, and by providing a decentralized payment channel, Flixxo gets rid of the middle-men and the infrastructure costs, building up a platform and a community where every author is able to upload content and set the rules of the distribution (such as the price and the incentives for users to share their work), developing new effective business models for his/her content, and where consumers may reach the content they ́re looking for in a legal manner, paying a fair price or even nothing if they are socially engaged with the community.
Flixxo will also educate its community, teaching its users that in this new internet era value can be held and transferred online without intermediaries, a value that can be earned back by participating in a community, by contributing, being rewarded for every single social interaction.
Using Smart contracts Flixxo will enable multiple individuals to receive rewards from the same content. So if a video took 1 Director, 1 Producer and 1 Actor to produce, a contract can be set which allows rewards to be paid out to all three individuals when content is watched and/or liked.
With Flixxo, multiple authors are able to set how to split the payment for every single view of the content. It means that the uploader could set, along with the price and the percentage of the earnings that will be shared with the network, how to split the earnings on several addresses (for each of the producers teammate ́s wallets). Also, an author may set rules for others to produce derivative works, and decide how the earnings will be split with the new co-author.
Flixxo will have a Smartphone and Tablet App, Desktop App and most importantly a Web based service. Flixxo will also be available on Smart Televisions and they clearly state no previous knowledge of Cryptocurrency will be required to view media via the Flixxo service. This is critical as the main reason Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies haven’t been adopted faster is due to developers developing products and services aimed at technogeeks and a determined minority.
The whitepaper gives a step by step ‘How it works’ scenario to try and give us a cleary understanding of how the platform, it’s token and the users interact:
Meet Jean-Paul. He is a French director and producer, and he has decided to give Flixxo a chance. He has connected his computer to Flixxo and has told the network he had made available his last movie, called “French toast” in high quality and with options on subtitles in many languages. He has set a price of 100 Flixx (Flixxo tokens) and has offered to share 50% of his earnings with the network. He has also set a warranty of 5000 Flixx blocked for two weeks in the Distribution Smart Contract.
Otto, a guy in Finland, has been looking for Jean-Paul ́s new film without success on his streaming app, and then on BitTorrent networks, where he had only found a bad quality copy of the movie dubbed to Russian with Spanish subtitles, and got his computer infested with some funny viruses. Otto sends those 100 Flixx straight to Jean-Paul and enjoys a great quality copy of the movie, streaming French Toast from his cell phone straight to his TV using a Chromecast device.
Even though Jean-Paul has already earned his first 100 Flixx, those funds will be controlled by the Distribution Smart Contract and will be held for seven days, in order to assure there are no licensing conflicts nor disputes. After watching French Toast, Otto decided to seed it (in fact he was seeding it from the moment he had downloaded a single piece of it).
Lionel in Argentina is also looking for French Toast. Lionel has no credit card so he can ́t pay for a subscription on the most popular streaming platforms. A friend of his invited him to participate in the network, and sent him a welcome reward of 100 Flixx. Lionel is keen to pay straightly those 100 Flixx to his favorite French director. In this case, as there is – along with Jean-Paul – another seeder from which Lionel is downloading the movie, Jean-Paul shares 50% of its earnings with both seeders. By now Jean-Paul has already earned 175 Flixx and Otto has 25 Flixx for watching new content.
The example does go into further depth and sub-scenarios but you get the picture, read the full Whitepaper here.
The token sale will be open for exactly 30 days starting from October 24th, 2017 at 14:00hrs CET. The price of a single Flixx token will be fixed at 0.00025ETH.
Flixx price will be set at a fixed rate of 1 Flixx = 0,00025 ETH (1 ETH = 4000 Flixx). Hard Cap is set at 75,000 ETH (however with the discounts rates applied on the first days of ICO we expect to have a Cap of around 50K ETH). With that sum we would be able to develop the platform, incentivize the production of original content and deploy a worldwide marketing strategy. Minimum CAP of 7,500 ETH would let us develop the platform, incentivize content and build up a digital marketing and communication campaign. In case of not reaching the soft cap, all the funds will be returned.
As with most ICO’s early adopters will recieve bonuses depending on their point of entry.
Purchases made over the first 24 hours of the sale will get a 30% discount (1 ETH =5200 Flixx)
From day 2 to 7 — 25%discount (1 ETH = 5000 Flixx)
From day 7to day 14 — 20% discount (1 ETH = 4800 Flixx)
From day 14 to day 21 — 15% discount (1 ETH = 4600 Flixx)
From day 21 to day 30 — 10% discount (1 ETH = 4400 Flixx)
Tokens will be distributed as follows:
Only the one holding the cash can really decide whether they should invest or not, but Flixxo does seem to have huge potential on the face of it. The idea behind it is not new, as I previously mentioned, multiple other platforms already exist attempting to tap this market but in my opinion have failed. This looks like the most promising yet, but this is purely based on their marketing of the product.
Whether it’s Flixxo or another platform, this idea of placing P2P video streaming on the Blockchain and rewarding content providers and storage providers will ultimately replace, or at least co-exist with Youtube in the not too distant future. Flixxo maybe the one, or it maybe just another netscape. It’s a gamble, but if you have some loose Ether kicking around maybe chuck a few this way and see what happens.
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